Thursday 22 November 2012

Letter to Murdoch



To Mr R Murdoch,
                                I am not one that would question your intelligence and abilities as a businessman and there is not many in the world that could seeing as the empire you have built, yet I was very intrigued to discover that from 2009 consumers were only to read The Times if they pay.This action of yours left me a tad bit confused. I use to think your main motive was for the people being up to date with news but your action clearly states you don’t care about the people; you want as much profit as possible. Where I thought the people were your priority, the truth is that money is your priority. You believe that if you are successful other newspapers will follow you and do the same. Well maybe this could’ve worked when newspapers first went online but since consumers have got the taste of free news and the rapid growth of social network sites have grown it might be to late to implement your idea. There are many flaws in your idea, not all newspapers put up a ‘pay wall’ and the ones that don’t will become more popular. The rapid growth in the popularity of social networks such as Face book and Twitter would allow one subscriber to share the news to hundreds/thousands of people. The impact of citizen journalism has caused edited/mediated news to seem untrue to an extent. Taking all this into account I think you need to utilize what you have got to its maximum potential and use advertising to gain your profits rather than a ‘pay wall’. I believe that you need to sort your priorities out and understand how important the people are after all, what are newspapers without the people?

Thank You


5 comments:

  1. I am sure you have heard James say "It is essential for the future of independent digital journalism that a fair price can be charged for news to people who value it". I stand by this. As a businessman, of course it is in my best interest to make a profit; allowing free news to be spread across the net limits competition which affects your own economy. Also, most news websites aren't technically free, license fee payers for example in the UK fund the BBC. If the BBC is guaranteed a healthy fixed income, why aren't the rest of us?

    About the point you made about me not caring about people receiving up to date news, why would I be in this business if I didn't care about that, there are other far profitable businesses I could be involved with. I could even have sold all of me news titles to concentrate on TV but I didn't because I share the belief (with my son James) that "state-sponsored journalism is a threat to the plurality and independence of news provision" for example, the BBC. Having the government shrewdly fund a world renowned organisation to inform people through "non-biased" journalists could be argued as communism.

    PS: Claim your exclusive offer of half price subscription now at www.thetimes.co.uk/

    ReplyDelete
  2. I can't click on the link so can't subscribe, soz bro.

    ReplyDelete
  3. i just hacked your phone and downloaded the app, check

    ReplyDelete
  4. send me the link to google bro

    ReplyDelete